Anticipating that a run-in with Brad Pitt in "Meet Joe Black" (which opens next Friday) would mean death at the box office, New Line snuck Richard LaGravenese’s "Living Out Loud" into a limited release last weekend, where it is emerging as a strong box office success. (The film earned an above-average $17,838 per theatre.) LaGravenese, 40, whose screenwriting credits include "Beloved" and "The Horse Whisperer," chose to make his directorial debut with "Living" because "it was time to take responsibility for a creative idea from beginning to end. I knew it would bring up every fear and weakness, and it did, but that was the point."
The film, about a woman finding her center after a messy divorce, stars Holly Hunter, and Danny DeVito as a besotted doorman. "I started with the theme of loneliness and disconnectedness," LaGravenese tells EW Online. "And then I added my sister, who had gone through a difficult divorce. She was a free spirit when I was young, and then when she got married she went into a kind of a coma. It’s great fun to blame my brother-in-law, who is an a--hole, but I knew my sister was responsible, too, because she had abandoned herself as well."
LaGravenese doesn’t plan to stop directing, although he’s back to scripting for now, working on a story about the '60s Manhattan music club the Peppermint Lounge. "Just writing feels like a bit of a vacation," he says. "Directing is sometimes the greatest high, and sometimes it’s the greatest low. It’s like living a mini lifetime."
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